Friday, June 26, 2015

Ian Tyson – Carnero Vaquero

By now, the story of Ian Tyson’s losing much of the range in his voice is well known.
And you can hear that loss on his last couple of albums. However, as I noted in
a concert review about a year-and-half-ago, Ian’s got his voice back thanks to
successful vocal cord surgery.

And that voice – familiar from those great Ian & Sylvia albums of the 1960s
and early-‘70s and from so many great solo albums in the decades since – is in
fine form on Carnero Vaquero a terrific
collection that includes six new songs written or co-written by Ian, one of
this country’s finest songwriters for more than a half-century.

My favorite of the new songs is “Wolves No
Longer Sing,” a beautiful, poetic song co-written by Tom Russell about the changing West and the passage of the old ways.
It’s even a lament for the days when music and songs came from people’s lives
rather than a place of commerce. (The song first surfaced earlier this year in
a version sung by Gretchen Peters on
Tom’s brilliant folk opera The Rose of Roscrae: A Ballad of the West.)

Other favorites from among the new songs
are a couple co-written with Kris
Demeanor. “Jughound Ronnie,” is a contemporary take on the traditional “Black
Jack David” story that is very much in the tradition of what Woody Guthrie did
with the traditional source material in his “Gypsy Davy,” while “The Flood” uses
the backdrop of the terrible floods in Alberta two years ago to set the scene
for a story of a broken relationship.

Other highlights include the beautiful
traditional cowboy song “Doney Gal,” Will Dudley’s infectious “Colorado Horses,”
and new versions of “Will James,” Ian’s tribute to the great cowboy author (who
was actually a French Canadian born in Quebec) and “Darcy Farrow,” Steve Gillette and Tom Campbell’s beautifully crafted traditional-style ballad first
recorded 50 years ago by Ian & Sylvia.

Ian recorded the album on the ranch in Alberta
with his working band and they know just what to do with these songs. At 81,
Ian Tyson sounds as great as ever.

About Me

I'm an editor, writer and broadcaster now based in Ottawa who has written about folk and roots music since the 1970s for Sing Out! Magazine and the Montreal Gazette and other Canadian newspapers. My radio show, Folk Roots/Folk Branches, was on CKUT in Montreal from 1994-2007. I'm now one of the rotating hosts of Saturday Morning on CKCU in Ottawa where my programming is based on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches format I developed at CKUT. I'm also one of the occasional co-hosts of Canadian Spaces on CKCU. In the 1970s and ‘80s I ran a folk club, the Golem, and produced most of Montreal’s folk-oriented concerts. I also booked tours for Kate & Anna McGarrigle, Priscilla Herdman, Rosalie Sorrels, Mason Daring & Jeanie Stahl, Bill Staines, Guy Van Duser & Billy Novick and Dakota Dave Hull & Sean Blackburn. In 2014, I was the recipient of the Ottawa Folk Festival's Helen Verger Award for "significant, sustained contributions to folk/roots music in Canada." In 2017, I was one of the inaugural inductees into the Folk DJ Hall of Fame created by Folk Alliance International.